and death, but this was not one of them. A child can understand
what happened. God said that my sister must come first, but He put
His hand on my mother's eyes at that moment and she was altered.

They told her that I was on my way home, and she said with a
confident smile, 'He will come as quick as trains can bring him.'
That is my reward, that is what I have got for my books.
Everything I could do for her in this life I have done since I was
a boy; I look back through the years and I cannot see the smallest
thing left undone.

They were buried together on my mother's seventy-sixth birthday,
though there had been three days between their deaths. On the last
day, my mother insisted on rising from bed and going through the
house. The arms that had so often helped her on that journey were
now cold in death, but there were others only less loving, and she
went slowly from room to room like one bidding good-bye, and in
mine she said, 'The beautiful rows upon rows of books, ant he said
every one of them was mine, all mine!' and in the east room, which
was her greatest triumph, she said caressingly, 'My nain bonny
room!' All this time there seemed to be something that she wanted,
but the one was dead who always knew what she wanted, and they
produced many things at which she shook her head. They did not
know then that she was dying, but they followed her through the
house in some apprehension, and after she returned to bed they saw
that she was becoming very weak. Once she said eagerly, 'Is that
you, David?' and again she thought she heard her father knocking
the snow off his boots. Her desire for that which she could not
name came back to her, and at last they saw that what she wanted
was the old christening robe. It was brought to her, and she